


Can't Run, Can't Hide

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 16:36:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not exactly just the easy access to fresh water and someone besides his brother to watch his back that’s making him want to stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Run, Can't Hide

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's tamingthemuse community, for the prompt "conformity". As always: Merle is a racist, and his views are not mine.
> 
> * * *

They’ve been on the road for five days, dodging walkers, sleeping with one eye open if they manage to sleep at all. Gas is running low and Merle’s temper is running high, and Daryl’s about ready to get out and start walking rather than listen to his brother rant and rave any longer.

Then they come across the quarry.

The camp ain’t too badly situated, as it happens. Got an ample supply of drinking water, once it’s boiled. Lots of game in the woods. Close enough to Atlanta for the Asian kid to go on his supply runs; far enough away that they ain’t likely to get many geeks wandering up the mountain pass. Still, Merle argued long and hard for them to continue on to the old hunting cabin and lay low, just the two of them, ‘til this thing passes. If it passes. It nearly came to blows before his brother backed down, and Daryl knows it wasn’t so much his good points about location and safety in numbers that made Merle acquiesce so much as it was the arrival of the two blondes in the RV. 

He sees Merle eyeing the older woman and opens his mouth to warn his brother off, ‘cause the last thing they need is that cop coming down on them. But he closes his mouth without saying a word. Because it’s not exactly just the easy access to fresh water and someone besides his brother to watch his back that’s making him want to stay, either.

The Asian kid is making his way through the camp now. Stopping to talk to everybody, squatting next to the rugrats and smiling at something they’ve drawn in their colouring books, diverting from his path to help the Mexican lug something out of his car. He’s tireless, and Daryl doesn’t know if it’s because he’s looking to make sure everybody knows he’s useful or if the kid is just like that, regardless. 

He catches Merle watching him out of the corner of his eye and quickly drops his head, but the kid already saw him looking, comes bounding over like a puppy. Daryl keeps his gaze fixated on the arrow in his hand, smoothes the cloth over the shaft again and again even though it’s as clean as it’s going to get. He can feel the kid, though, hesitating on the edge of the little campsite him and Merle set up amongst the others. Can feel Merle, too, a large, lurking presence at his back. 

Neither one of them are picking up on all the _go the fuck away_ vibes he’s sending out. So he ignores the churning in his gut, finally looks up, glares at the kid. “What you lookin’ at?”

The kid actually takes a step back. “Nothing,” he says quickly. “I was just… I thought maybe… I’m going into town later, so I thought you might want—“

“We don’t want anything you got, chink,” Merle says. He leans to the side and spits before he takes a step forward, hand coming down meatily on Daryl’s shoulder. “Ain’t that right, little brother?”

Daryl doesn’t answer, just stares the kid down until Glenn takes another step back. 

“Sure. Whatever,” Glenn mutters before he turns on his heel, heads back to safer pastures. 

Daryl watches until the woman with the grey hair stops him halfway across the camp, watches until he sees the kid gesture with his hands and the woman’s head come up sharply, her eyes narrowing as they arrow in on him and his brother. Watches until she draws her arm around the kid’s shoulders and pulls him toward one of the tents.

“Goddamn surrounded by chinks and spics and niggers,” Merle says from behind him. “Christ, all we need’s a damn camel jockey and we got the full set. You’d best be stayin’ away from them, Daryl. You listen to me now.”

Daryl notches the arrow into place with the others, pushes away from Merle and rises from his spot on the old log. 

“Goin’ huntin’,” he says, doesn’t look back to see how Merle takes his departure. He tells himself that he ain’t going to look toward the tents, either, but he still finds his gaze drifting that way. 

Glenn’s talking to the cop now, nodding at something he’s saying, but he must have some kind of super-sense of when he’s being watched, because he looks up, meets Daryl’s eyes. 

And the kid smiles at him. It’s tentative and fleeting, drops from his face as soon as the cop puts a hand on his arm to draw him back into their conversation, but it’s there.

Daryl doesn’t remember stomping from the camp, doesn’t remember pushing his way through the underbrush. Doesn’t remember watching for walkers, and that shit could get him killed. Doesn’t remember anything until he’s a half mile from camp and slumped against a gnarled tree, his heart racing. He leans forward, rests the palm of his hands against his thighs and tries to breathe.

He’s tired, he realizes. Tired of pretending he’s okay with the shit Merle puts out; tired of staying silent and letting people believe he feels the same. Tired of keeping his eyes down and his mouth closed. Tired of hiding who he is. 

The kid knows.

Daryl takes a breath, stands straight. Pushes all thoughts of Glenn and Merle and the clusterfuck that’s bound to happen when Merle realizes how he feels about the kid out of his head. He’s got it in mind to track down some big game today, maybe a deer. Bring something back to camp that’ll keep everyone’s bellies full for a few days. Maybe then Glenn won’t have to risk his ass going back to Atlanta so often. 

After all, he lets himself consider, it’s a pretty fine ass. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.

Daryl smiles as he pushes away from the tree, starts scanning the ground for sign. Things are going to be better when he gets back.


End file.
